Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Thus the whole circle of travellers may be reduced to the following Heads. Idle Travellers, Inquisitive Travellers, Lying Travellers, Proud Travellers, Vain Travellers, Splenetic Travellers. Then follow the Travellers of Necessity. The delinquent and felonious Traveller, The unfortunate and innocent Traveller, The simple Traveller, And last of all (if you please) The Sentimental Traveller (meaning thereby myself) who have travell'd, and of which I am now sitting down to give an account—as much out of Necessity, and the besoin de Voyager, as any one in the class. — Laurence Sterne, 'A Sentimental Journey Through France & Italy', 1768.

Sterne, born in Clonmel in 1713, was perhaps the first 'modern' writer and said nearly everything that may be said about travel as it is experienced by the traveller, especially on journeys in continental Europe. I imagine the perennially peripatetic folks down in Cannes might agree.

Some 150 Irish delegates are making the trip this year, working for 80+ businesses, agencies, festivals, organisations and representative bodies.

Minister Deenihan will also be putting in an appearance to 'ink' a new co-production agreement with South Africa. [update - rescheduled as follows]

Initial news emerging from the PR mill includes talk that Pierce Brosnan's Irish DreamTime is setting up the first project, November Man, in what is hoped will become a new franchise starring the actor based on a series of spy novels. And apparently Scarlett Johanson is out and Kiera Knightley is in the next John Carney project, Can a Song Save Your Life?

There'll be footage of Byzantium being flogged, along with a non-Irish film starring Ronan Keating, John Michael McDonagh's Calvary project, Terry George's post-Oscar feature Whole Lotta Sole, North-South co-productions developed in Northern Ireland - Jump and Good Vibrations, Katrine Boorman's doc about her father John - Me and Me Dad, Chris O'Dowd's next big outing TheSapphires.

Fionnula Flanagan turns up with a chorus of (mostly) country music stars in a Christmas movie called When Angels Sing. Cillian Murphy turns up in a new British debut feature and I'm sure projects with Gabriel Byrne, Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell and Michael Fassbender are all being hawked somewhere along the Croisette.

The Film Board will be formally setting out its stall with the following although I'm sure plenty of other recent titles will turn up in sales agent catalogues. I wonder if there'll be even more pricing than usual denominated in US dollars and Sterling, rather than the Euro?